Picture contains a pier, leading to a body of water and a full moon in the sky.
Goodnight Moon, written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd, is a classic children’s picture book. This is a bedtime story. Your local library may have multiple copies of it.
In Goodnight Moon, the little bunny child in bed is looking around at all of the inanimate and animate objects, it can see from its bed, and telling them, “Goodnight.” Some pictures in the book are colored. Other pictures are grey.
By looking at the colored pictures, you can see the passage of time. There are at least two clocks in the room with the little bunny. You can see in the colored pictures that the little bunny child is in bed at 7:00 p.m., an early bedtime by today’s standards. He falls asleep at approximately 8:10 p.m. Also, you will see the moon rise into view outside one of the windows at approximately 7:20 p.m. Another characteristic is the darkening of the colored pictures of the little bunny’s bedroom. In the beginning of the book, the colors are muted, but relatively bright in comparison to colored pictures, appearing towards the end of book. As you read, you will notice the colored bedroom pictures getting dimmer. The darkening of the colored bedroom pictures might make you sleepy as you read.
I have to warn readers about a problem, reading red text on top of dark, navy blue sections in the colored pictures of the green bedroom. This may or may not bother you or impair your reading. The illustrator, Clement Hurd, may have did this to make readers feel sleepier as they read. However, red words on a dark, navy blue background does not provide enough contrast to easily read those sections. The grey pictures have black text on top of white pages. Red text on top of a dark, navy blue background is simply not reader-friendly.
On Amazon.com, this book is marketed for ages, baby to four years old. I was getting sleepy as I read and re-read this book. My eyes got heavy and I began to yawn. If this book can work on an adult, it can probably work on a young child above four years old, but test it out by borrowing a copy from the library before you decide to buy it.
This story is a poem that prepares babies and young children for bed. The calm rhythm and repetition of telling everything, “Goodnight,” can put an adult in the mood to fall asleep as one reads this book.
I highly recommend this children’s book to parents and guardians, not just for the child, but for the adults as well. Goodnight Moon may help adults to fall asleep as they are reading this book to a child or children. Also, day care providers and babysitters can read this book to young children at naptime.
Reference
Brown, Margaret Wise. Goodnight moon. New York: HarperCollins, 1947.
Links
Margaret Wise Brown biography on Wikipedia
Margaret Wise Brown-Children’s Author
Clement Hurd biography on Wikipedia
Clement Hurd biography on HarperCollins.com
Goodnight Moon at HarperCollins.com
Goodnight Moon Board Book at BarnesandNoble.com
Goodnight Moon-Read Aloud on YouTube
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